Relationships within work teams are pretty complex due to the intricate balance of power and conflict in the workplace setting. Understanding the principles based on which these relationships develop is the key to resolving workplace conflicts successfully and managing the power dynamics within a team to ensure that staff members focus on addressing work-related issues.
Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation
As a manager at the Mixing Department of Bridgestone Aiken plant (BAP), I have been facing problems associated with the group dynamics and especially the management of conflicts. The latter can be viewed from different perspectives, depending on what is regarded as the vital source of power. As a rule, gender issues rarely become the platform for disagreements in the target setting; instead, age and competency often become the reason for disagreements to emerge. Specifically, the staff members at BAP and especially the team of the Mixing Department seem to focus excessively on the issue of age and experience. The specified problem seems to be a combination of external and internal factors, specifically, the pressure of numerous responsibilities and duality demands at BAP and the individual behavioral standards of staff members. Particularly, the cultural values of some of them seem to revolve around the idea of linking age to experience. In contrast, the rest are willing to challenge the concept of age and push the envelope of innovativeness.
Since the team members of the Mixing Department at BAP seem to conflate the ideas of an individual improvement in performance to gearing the development of the entire group in one’s own direction, it is necessary to introduce corrections to the current power dynamics within the group. The participants will have to assess the situation objectively and recognize the poor distribution of power and the misalignment of personal values as the key source of conflicts, thus defining the strategies for correcting their behaviors. The resulting shift in the management of the workplace conflict will entail a change in the group behavior, introducing its participants to the idea of a compromise and inspiring them to collaborate.
Theories and Principles/Abstract Conceptualization
Since the study of human behavior is critical to handling the problem of workplace conflicts, a manager has to scrutinize the theories associated with the nature of conflicts and confrontations, as well as the economic, social, and cultural factors that define their development. In this regard, considering theories for conflict resolution will also be helpful to spur the development of understanding and cooperation within a team. As soon as employees approach the problem of conflicts in the workplace constructively and objectively, the sources of confrontations will become the foundation for learning.
The issue of workplace conflict, its connection to power, and its effects on employees’ behavior and motivation should also be examined through the lens of the TFT theory mentioned above. Allowing to explore the issue of the workplace confrontation as the effect of differences in interpreting the environmental information, the specified approach sheds light on not only the nature of the problem but also on its possible solutions. The proposed approach implies managing the problem under analysis through the enhanced self-control and profound self-analysis. In addition, different theories of conflict will have to be considered to scrutinize the situation at BAP. Specifically, one will need to pay attention to the Theory of Rational Choice as the principal conflict management framework (Men & Robinson, 2018).
Testing and Application/Active Experimentation
It is currently critical for the Mixing Department at BAP to learn to view conflicts not from a personal perspective but a professional one. Specifically, instead of defining miscommunications as instances of personal attacks, staff members will need to recognize conflicts as misunderstandings that can be utilized to learn more about communication and cross-cultural dialogue.
In addition, applying the ideas of self-control and self-analysis to the situation in the Mixing Department at BAP, one should consider the idea of introducing employees to the notion of cultural sensitivity and the necessity to collaborate to strive toward attaining a common goal. Once the importance of cooperation is established as the cornerstone principle of workplace ethics, the team members of the Mixing Department will develop a healthy attitude toward conflict management and learn to follow the established norms of group behavior while maintaining their personal integrity values.
References
Men, L. R., & Robinson, K. L. (2018). It’s about how employees feel! examining the impact of emotional culture on employee–organization relationships. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 23(4), 470-491.
Velmurugan, T. A., & Sankar, J. G. (2017). A Comparative Study on Motivation Theory with Maslow’s Hierarchy theory and Two-factor theory in Organization. Indo-Iranian Journal of Scientific Research, 1(1), 204-208.